Midweek Faith Lift
April 23, 2025
And Still We Rise!
Easter Sunday
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
Spiritual Passages
April 2025
There is a story of a young man, impassioned with his love for a woman, who wrote her a letter about his commitment to her. He said, "I would swim the widest ocean, just to see your face. I would battle the most ferocious dragon to hold your hand. I would work seven days a week to supply your slightest desire." "P.S. I'll be by to see you on Sunday if it doesn't rain."
And then another story….
I woke up one morning and found my dog lying on the back patio covered in dirt with a rabbit in his mouth. The rabbit's not bloody, just dirty. My neighbor's kids raise blue ribbon rabbits. I instantly knew it was one of theirs. So I took the rabbit away from my dog, rushed inside, and washed all the dirt off it before my neighbors could come home. It was stiff but I heard some animals play dead when they are afraid but I couldn't remember which ones. I took it and placed it back in one of the cages in their back yard then I raced back home. Not 30 minutes later I hear my neighbors screaming so I go out and ask them what's wrong? They tell me their rabbit died three days ago and they buried it but now it's back in the cage.
If you never experienced transformation, you can never really begin to understand resurrection either.
~ "In Search of Belief" by Joan Chittister
Affirmative prayer: Infinite Presence, I give thanks for the life and teachings of Christ Jesus, the radiant pattern of wholeness and holiness. Today, I lay down old stories of separation and struggle - beliefs that have kept me small. As I release them, I rise into the boundless potential of my divine nature. Thank you, God, forever. Amen.
Well, Happy Easter! Today we celebrate the story of the resurrection of Jesus, the Christ. I love both of these stories because they so clearly illustrate what the resurrection is not about, both humanly and spiritually and they are part of what I spoke of last week….for success, you need a funny bone, a backbone and a wishbone! We are challenged to keep our sense of humor about all that is happening in our world these days, but we have to laugh, and play and dance to remember who we really are as Divine Spiritual Beings.
Last Monday, we celebrated the human life of our dear friend, Sherry Bradley. At the end of the service, we sang and danced with these little umbrellas to “Oh When the Saints Go Marchin’ In!” How like Sherry to ask us to end with joy and dancing!
As I have noted in years past, the cross is a symbol of our Divine/Human journey. The horizontal bar is our human journey with our timeline, our human birth and death. The vertical bar is our Divinity, our higher self, our Christ consciousness. We live at the intersection of the two, where we cultivate our observer self that notes both our human responses and opens to what Spirit whispers to our awareness of our Christ consciousness. It is in the intersection of our human/Divine self that we come into the greater awareness that there is a bigger dimension to this lived human experience. We want to escape, but with each crucifixion experience we have, when we lean into the pain and the lesson, we come up higher in consciousness.
Think of it as the horizontal bar starting at ground level when we are born. And then as we experience life, with all its trials and frustrations and difficulties, each time we learn the lessons about love and compassion, our consciousness comes up higher in spiritual and human growth. We have multiple crucifixion experiences throughout our lives; when our ego has to surrender, has to let go and die. Only after that do we experience the true transformation that is the resurrection. We experience humility and engage with that power greater than we are that is Spirit; that is God, that is Love.
Clearly, the young man in the opening story declaring his undying love for this woman has yet to have that truly tested in some kind of crucifixion experience. And when he does face that crucifixion experience, he has the option to lean into and embrace the lesson or the choice not to do that. He will only grow into spiritual consciousness when and if he embraces the suffering and the lesson of his human experience. It is only when our heart breaks that it breaks open. We are wise to remember that this is not a linear process, not a one and done. It is an unfolding, much like the rebirth that takes place in the spring.
One of the lessons of the crucifixion experience of Jesus is to let us know that we are not alone in our suffering; he suffered, too. His death was not right, just or fair, even those who died with him said that. But that wasn’t the message. The true message is that the power of love, of life has dimensions and a reality that is beyond what our human consciousness can fathom. True freedom, true spiritual liberation happens when we break into that awareness of a reality greater than we are. That is the experience of transformation! That is the experience of resurrection. It is not about our human body coming back to life, it is about our consciousness opening to an expansion of life, a greater, broader and deeper awareness of the mystery of all life.
Eric Butterworth in Discover the Power Within You describes the metaphysical understanding of Easter. He writes this:
Metaphysically, Easter is the awakening and arising to spiritual consciousness and the Christ within us. When we are “born again” metaphysically, we see a new spiritual dimension. From this spiritual place in our hearts and minds, we know the ‘Kingdom of God’ is within us, as Jesus taught and anything and everything is possible! Through the resurrection, Jesus demonstrated that the life of God is changeless and eternal for each of us because of our divinity. With all the mysteries of life and death, we can trust that our souls are immortal.
To me this means that we are emanations of the energy of God, of Love, of Spirit. We came from that energy, and when we let go of our physical form, we will return to that dimension of Spiritual energy from whence we came. This is truly a mystery, one that enriches and enlivens our experience in this human dimension. My tombstone, should I have one, will say, “Testing my theories!”
There are several things worth noting at this point. The first one is that the number three throughout the Scriptures signals transformation or momentous change and according to Joan Chittister, there are 30 such events in the Bible. She writes this:
The Scripture is quite clear: It was "on the third day that the Resurrection happened." Our culture calls such moments "Rubicon" events, times of decision, moments of momentous change. Scripture, in fact, identifies thirty defining events as having occurred on "the third day." On "the third day," for instance, God seals the covenant with Moses. Esther goes to the King to beg for the safety of the Jews. Abraham prepares to sacrifice Isaac. To speak of something as having happened on "the third day" then, signals a crossover moment in time.
~Joan Chittister, "In Search of Belief" p.135
The transformative experience for us is when we know that because of what we have experienced, we will never be the same, and that is something to celebrate!
The next thing to note is that each of the 4 Gospels has a somewhat different account of the resurrection and the post-resurrection Jesus. This suggests to me that we are each challenged to understand the meaning of the story for our own lives and experiences. The resurrection is truly transformative but it cannot happen without the crucifixion. It happens to individuals, to families, to cities and to nations. No one and no entity is exempt. We endure and learn of perceived separateness in crucifixion and then we learn of and experience our true oneness and connection in resurrection.
Again, from Joan Chittister, “In Search of Belief” p. 142
Awareness, the first mark of the contemplative, brings us face to face with the holiness of life. Dualism with all its separation of spirit and matter, heaven and earth, reason and feeling, light and dark lies to us about the nature of creation. Life is not two substances -- one spirit, one matter; one good, one evil -- joined together on the tether of a fragile human breath. Life is two dimensions of one creation, integrated and brimming with the Divine in one another.
When we truly wake up to our collective humanity/Divinity, we will realize the full potential of our spiritual truth, our spiritual power. We will step into the beauty and wonder of who we really are. We will work wonders and spread light and healing in the world. We will stop crucifying one another and once again rise to the true calling of the Easter promise of transformation. In the words of Greek philosopher, Plotinus:
"I am trying to make what is most Divine in me rise up to what is
Divine in the Universe."
May it be so….
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis